The disclosure relates generally to a pad assembly and more particularly to a floor polishing or grinding pad assembly.
It is known to use fibrous pads for polishing and grinding floors within industrial or commercial buildings. Such polishing or grinding pads are ideally suited for use on concrete, terrazzo, and natural (e.g., marble), engineered and composite stone floors. Examples of such pads and the powered machines used to rotate such can be found in the following U.S. patents and patent publication numbers: 2011/0300784 entitled “Flexible and Interchangeable Multi-Head Floor Polishing Disk Assembly” which was invented by Tchakarov et al. and published on Dec. 8, 2011; U.S. Pat. No. 9,174,326 entitled “Arrangement For Floor Grinding” which issued to Ahonen on Nov. 3, 2015; U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,886 entitled “Multiple Abrasive Assembly and Method” which issued to Rivard et al. on May 22, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,493 entitled “Stone Polishing Apparatus and Method” which issued to Donatelli et al. on Feb. 25, 1997; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,245 entitled “Combination of Cleaning Pads, Cleaning Pad Mounting Members and a Base Member for a Rotary Cleaning Machine” which issued to Coty on Oct. 8, 1991. All of these patents and the patent publication are incorporated by reference herein.
Notwithstanding, improved floor polishing and grinding performance is desired. Furthermore, some of these prior constructions exhibit uneven wear in use which prematurely destroy the pads or cause inconsistent polishing or grinding.
In accordance with the present invention, a floor polishing or grinding pad assembly is provided. In one aspect, a polishing or grinding pad assembly employs a flexible pad, a reinforcement layer or ring, and multiple floor-contacting tools such as disks. In another aspect, a workpiece polishing or grinding pad assembly includes a flexible and rotatable pad, and abrasive tools of different sizes coupled to a workpiece-facing surface of the pad. In yet another aspect, at least one of the floor-contacting tools has a workpiece-contacting bottom plane with a tapered angle offset from that of a base surface of the tool, a flexible pad and/or a flexible reinforcement layer. A further aspect employs a smaller set of disks alternating between and/or offset from a larger set of the disks. A method of making and using a flexible pad employing multiple polishing or grinding tools of different sizes or patterns is also presented.
The present pad assembly is advantageous over traditional devices. For example, some of the disk configurations, such as disk angles and/or offset placement of disks, of the present pad assembly advantageously create more consistent wear characteristics when polishing or grinding, thereby increasing their useful life and consistency of polishing or grinding. These angles cause more even inner and outer wear of the floor-facing side of the pad assembly. The angles additionally create more consistent floor-contact pressure between a middle and periphery during rotational use. Furthermore, the present pad assembly advantageously allows greater floor contact with the pad within a centralized area generally surrounded by the disks, in various of the present aspects, which is expected to improve polishing or grinding performance. The alternating large and small tools and/or differently patterned tools, coupled to the pad also provide differing polishing or grinding characteristics without the need to change pad assemblies during use. Additional advantages and features of the present invention will be readily understood from the following description, claims and appended drawings.